He saw, in the black night, what none but a sailor's eyes would have
seen, a thing not visible, but divined, coming along on the bosom of the
river; and his ears saw it the clearer as that little cry continued--now
stopped, now stifled, now rising, now nearly piercing; and then there
was a growl, momentary and loud, and a rattle as of feet over wood, and
a stroke or thud, or heavy concussion, and then a white thing rose up
against the universal ink and rushed on the little scow, sucking water
as it came--the cat-boat under full sail.
Phoebus had paddled for the opposite shore of the river to prevent the
object of his quest escaping up the Northwest Fork, yet to be in its
path if it beat up the main fork, and, by a piece of instinctive
calculation, he had run nearly under the cat-boat bows.
"Ahoy, there!" cried Jimmy, standing up in his tipsy little skiff; "ahoy
the _Ellenory Dennis!_ I'm a-comin' aboard."
And with this, the paddle still in his hand, and his knees and feet
nearly sentient in their providence of uses, the sailor threw himself
upon the low gunwale, and let it glide through his palms till he could
see the man at the helm.
There was no light to be called so, but the helmsman was yet perceived
by the sailor's experienced eyes, and he grappled the gunwale firmer,
and, preparing to swing himself on board, shouted hoarsely,
"You Levin Dennis, I see you, by smoke! You know Jimmy Phoebus is your
friend, an' come out of this Pangymonum an' stop a-breakin' of your
mother's heart! Oh, I see you, my son!"
If he did see Levin Dennis, Levin did not see Jimmy Phoebus, nor
apparently hear him, but stood motionless at the helm as a frozen man,
looking straight on in the night.
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